In 1951 Charles Olson proclaimed the age of objectism, 'the getting rid of the lyrical interference of the individual as ego'; eight years later, in a short and equally idiosyncratic manifesto which stands as the preface to this selection, Frank O'Hara celebrated the founding of personism, which took place 'after lunch with Leroi Jones on August 27, 1959'. What brought it into being was O'Hara's realization that 'I could use the telephone instead of writing the poem', a discovery which 'puts the poem squarely between the poet and the person, Lucky Pierre style'. The individual as ego, in short, is given full permission to interfere as much as it likes.